This is a little irrelevant, but I just wanted to tell you that about a month ago, a person who lives here whose name is Bolarian, he begged me to try to get people to chant more enthusiastically during our services. Just being lonely, so I told the head of practice here that I would be willing to give a Wednesday night talk. And I thought, maybe we could practice chanting. And so I mentioned to some people recently that I was going to talk about chanting. And they said, well, you already had a chanting practice. He said, if you do another one, people might think it's kind of repetitive.

[01:02]

And I kind of felt like, oh, okay. And the other day I thought, kind of repetitive? That's kind of what we're doing here. Okay, what are we doing? Buddha way. What is it? Buddha way. Buddha way. And if you keep saying over and over, does it get sort of uninteresting? It's not supposed to. And I first came to Zen Center in San Francisco. They were doing some tests on some of the senior people, like some of the priests were getting tested over at UC Medical Center. And they were testing them to see various neurologic things going on in their head. And one of the tests they did on them They had it wired up, and then they'd ring a bell, and then there would be a neural response about that tall. And then they'd ring it again, and it would get the same height.

[02:08]

And they'd ring it again, and it would get the same height. And again, same height. Ordinarily, adults, if you ring a bell once, it's a certain size, and the more you ring it, it dampens out, and you have almost no response. But if you're practicing Zen meditation, it's the same. It's kind of like, everything starts over in one moment. So you never get bored of repeating stuff. ... [...] So I thought, okay, I'll talk about something else. One thing I'll talk about is

[03:09]

Somebody said to me recently, what's the difference between vipassana? Have you ever heard of vipassana? What's the difference between mindfulness practice and Zen? Somebody asked me that, because he'd been practicing Zen for a long time, like practicing what he called just sitting. He'd been practicing it. And recently he told me he started to practice mindfulness. He said, what's the difference between mindfulness and just sitting? I said, I don't know what the difference is, but I do know that if you practice mindfulness without trying to get anything, that's just sitting. But I don't know what the difference is between just sitting and anything.

[04:23]

And I really don't. Just sitting is any activity you're doing where you're not trying to get anything. For example, if you're sitting, like we go in the Zen room and sit, if you're sitting there, and you're not trying to get anything, then that's called just sitting. If you're sitting there trying to get something, that's called suffering. I mean, what do you mean? There's not enough information. Suffering is better than some of the other things you say. So the practice of Just sitting is the practice of the Buddha way. It's the practice of Buddhas. Buddhas practice just sitting. The practice of Buddhas is called just sitting.

[05:33]

So when Buddhas sit, oh, when they sit. When Buddhas sit, oh, when they sit. When Buddhas sit, oh, when they sit, they turn the wheel of Dharma. because of just sitting when they're sitting. For some people, the goal of Buddhism is the activity of Buddhism. I'm not telling you you should have that goal. But in my case, the goal of my life is the activity of Buddhism. And the activity of Buddhas is the liberation of beings so they may live in peace together. That's the goal of my life. There are other nice ways to put it, like saving all sentient beings, eliminating all affliction, dropping all affliction,

[06:38]

entering into the full realization of the teaching and becoming Buddha. That's the goal of my life. That's what I think the ancestors of this Zen tradition, that was their goal too, as far as I can tell. And they taught that if that's your goal, then it's appropriate not to strive for it. That's your goal. It's appropriate not to try to get it. Because if you try to get Buddha activity, it's kind of like you go away from it. If you try to get it, that's not what it is. Buddha is not trying to get Buddhahood. Buddha is exercising it. Buddha is not trying to get liberation and get peace.

[07:44]

Buddha is exercising it. And you exercise it by exercising it, by just exercising it, not by trying to get it or go someplace. Okay, and then one... I may not have mentioned that before, but by the way, we are already at that goal. Did I say that before? No. We're already there. Where? At the goal of what? Of Buddhas. We're already there. That's what the Buddhas say. Other people say something different. I'm just talking about the Buddhas saying you're already at Buddhahood. However, if you think that there's a slight difference between where you're at now and Buddhahood, it's kind of like Buddhahood is far away, like the distance from heaven to earth.

[08:44]

Heaven to earth, yes. Earth to heaven. It seems like far away, if you make the slightest difference from your present situation and your goal of peace and freedom among all beings. A little bit of difference seems to create a distance, a big distance. And the distance is simply by clinging to that discrimination. Only by discrimination do we not realize where we already are. Only by discrimination do we magically create that we're not already living in the heart of Buddha activity. And then also, there's another point which I don't think I made yet, which is, we're somewhat insistent on making discriminations. And in particular, this particular one, discriminating to where we are now and where we want to be.

[09:48]

Where we want to be is where we are now, but that's kind of like, what am I going to do with my discriminations? I think maybe they don't work. So I think I'll use my discriminations now, and then where I want to be is a little different from where I am now. We can do that, and it's not bad that we do it, but we're kind of addicted to it, we kind of keep it up. Doing it once in a while, just for fun, is not a problem. Matter of fact, in order to become free of this addiction to discrimination, we have to practice with our discriminations. I often met this speaker, she said, people, we have a term called non-discriminating wisdom. Have you heard about it? Have you? Now you have. Non-discriminating Buddhism. Non-discriminating Buddhism.

[10:56]

That's one of the names for the wisdom of the Buddhists. They know everybody. They know everything. And they can discriminate just like you and me. They can discriminate just like we discriminate. Matter of fact, they do discriminate just like we do. The way a Buddha discriminates is just like you discriminate. Not the slightest bit different. Because Buddha is not the slightest bit different from your present discriminations. Did you get that? So, do you ever discriminate? Do you ever discriminate? Okay, so I'm saying to you that the Buddha is discriminating. Just let me hear. Did you get that?

[11:59]

That's it. Oh, and by the way, what I'm saying is not understood. by me or you. It's a fine that you tell me. However, it is understood by a conversation. A conversation understands this. And again, if that's something you don't understand, a conversation understands that. So, nondiscrimination is not not discriminated. So if you're doing discrimination, non-discriminating wisdom is not the absence of your discriminations. Non-discriminating wisdom is the study of all your discriminations carefully and compassionately.

[13:06]

We all have discriminations going on quite a bit, And Buddha's wisdom is to do those discriminations wholeheartedly, which means to carefully and compassionately observe them and think about them. By carefully and compassionately observing our discriminations, we will recover from the addiction to discrimination without getting rid of the discriminations And also without getting rid of the addiction. The addiction becomes liberated. The distinctions, the discriminations become liberated. And in particular, or for example, one of the discriminations that becomes liberated is a discrimination that where you want to be is different from where you are.

[14:09]

And that discrimination kind of makes it harder to just be where you are without trying to get it. However, if where you are, if you're someplace and you're trying to get something, that trying to get something is due to a discrimination. And if you study that discrimination compassionately, it will be liberated. You could say you will let go of it, or you could say it lets go of you, but actually you both get liberated together by compassionately observing the discriminations which interfere with the radiance of where you already are. The radiance of where you are and also the radiance of you being where you are and being no place else. So if anybody here has an idea like where I am now is a little bit different or considerably different from Buddha's radiant non-discriminating wisdom, if anybody has a thought like that, we don't have to get rid of that thought.

[15:46]

And we don't even have to be free of it. However, there is an opportunity to be free of that thought, which is, whatever it was, it was just a thought. And while having that thought, you were not the slightest bit different from Buddha could. I happen to hear any of that, so now I want to have a conversation. Sam? I was wondering how... We're speaking to trying to get something out of a situation. What you don't know if you're trying to get something from the situation, is it something? In your particular case, just come and tell me if you don't know. And if I can't find it temporarily, you might not be doing it.

[16:56]

Probably just now, we might have been off on a return to get an answer from you. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Shut the fuck up. So again, having conversations will reveal to you that you're involved in seeking and trying to gain something. And the conversation can deal with that discovered seeking, that discovered discrimination and separation between what you want and where you are now, which are not separate. Because what you want is a liberation that is not someplace other than where you are. I mean, some people think that's what's the case, but that's not what you want. You don't want to discriminate a liberation of some other universe. You want it to be right where you are. And yet our mind has to be trained to notice that we keep separating where we are from where we want to be. And when we do that, then we actually try to get it.

[18:00]

But that's not the end of the story. We can deal with that. So if you can't find anything in your particular case, you're welcome to talk to me and some other people up here in college. You can also talk to who would probably like to help you discover, by any chance, we're trying to get anything out of this practice. But you might not need our help in that regard, because you might be able to discover it yourself. And once you discover it yourself, then you can come and get help being kind to this What a monster you discovered. Which is not just discrimination. It's not just discrimination isn't a monster. It's the addiction to it. It's the assistance of it. It's the belief in it. We're all here to help each other not be stuck in our discriminations. And we're not really here to take everybody's discriminations away. People's discriminations are beautiful. Strangling them is enough. And when we cling to them, we strangle them and they cry out in pain.

[19:05]

And also, they seem to interfere with the Buddha activity. Again, to try to get certainty that you're not doing that is a perfectly good thing to try to get. A perfectly good example of trying to gain something would be to gain the knowledge that I'm not trying to gain anything. Rather than grasping, trying to gain something, can you aspire to something? You can. You can aspire to things. And some of the things you can aspire to, you might from the beginning realize you could never grasp them. Sometimes it's good to aspire to things which you know beforehand. There's no way that you're going to get a hold of them. Because they're just too grand. So aspiration can be done without trying to gain anything. But it also can be done trying to gain something.

[20:07]

By the way, do you aspire to something? Yes. What? I aspire to reach Jehovah's State. Okay. You aspire to reach Jehovah's State. All right. By the way, are you willing to give up all John's days? When I reach them, I can't give them up, yes. Are you willing to give up sitting John's days? No. So aspiring to John Estates is different than trying to get one. And I'm not saying, in this case, I'm not saying that if you try to get a John Estates, you will not be able to.

[21:20]

I'm not saying that. But I would say, if you are trying to get a John Estates, it will make it more difficult to realize a John Estates. Going back to your... Did you say you aspire to understand? Yes. And did you ever say that if you try to get it, it's going to impede your aspiration? What you aspire to do? Yes. Going back to something? Going back to sitting. Yes. Let's go back to sitting. Okay, just sitting. In a not-respite fashion. Can you aspire to reach a goal? You could definitely aspire to reach a goal with or without grappling. You can aspire to attain a goal without trying to get anything. I agree to that.

[22:23]

And you can also aspire to something and try to get it. And if what you aspire to is misery, then it would be good to try to get it. That would be appropriate. If you want to be miserable, that's what you aspire to. Trying to get it would be successful. Right away. Now, if what you aspire to is freedom and peace, and you don't seek it at all, you attain it instantly. and also ungraspably. So not only are you not trying to get it, but you're also giving up knowing that you got it. Which again is like, which is most important? Attaining non-discriminating wisdom of Buddhas, or knowing that you did? Would you say more about compassion and care and kindness towards those discriminated thoughts?

[23:34]

Sure. Anything particular you want me to say? Let's say, like, Sam came and told me about some discriminations he's making and also some wish to get one side of the discrimination. And I could, like, listen to him and respect him and not think, um, another reason to respect him. Yeah, I wouldn't even think that. I'd just say, beautiful, beautiful, aspiring, and also just looking into trying to get something. I can respect that and be welcome in that, and not be disgusted in it, and not be able to get away from it, and be careful, and gentle with it, and patient with it. But it may take a while to get over this, and you'll be suffering until then. And again, try not to try to get something, you know, don't try to get something out of my skin.

[24:38]

Don't think I'm bad about it. Don't think bad thoughts of it. Don't think mean thoughts of it. Don't deny it. Don't numb myself from it. Don't try to kill it. practice the precepts with it, be really respectful of what? What are you talking about, Luke? Discriminating thoughts. Discriminating thoughts, including that I get it or not get it. Which is also... Non-discriminating wisdom is not not discriminating, it's studying everything. So no matter what your discriminating thoughts are, don't skip over this one, This is a perfectly good one to study and give your full attention to, because this happens to be what you're given. So say thank you and receive it, and be gentle with it, be patient with it, and then you can calm down with it, and then you can see it, and then when you seek it, it sees you, and then it tells you, I'm not going to need discrimination.

[25:49]

This is always wisdom. Discrimination is where we are sometimes, right? Right now. It's not the slightest bit different from Buddhist wisdom. Buddhist wisdom is right here with our discriminations. If we're kind to our discriminations, we're open to Buddhist wisdom, which is never apart from them. Buddhists aren't like, I don't know what, on vacation away from the discriminator. Buddhas are like always right there with the discriminators. Any discriminators here? Buddhas are right with you. They're right where you are. If you're really open to your discrimination compassionately and thoroughly, you'll notice there's somebody else there with you. We call Buddha. Who is not other than your thoughts. They're not the slightest bit separate. Buddha is your thoughts completely being your thoughts. But if you don't let your thoughts be your thoughts and try to get better ones and get other people to have better ones, then you'd also be trying to get a better Buddha.

[26:56]

But there's no better Buddha than your thoughts. And of course your thoughts are not better than Buddha. There's absolutely no separation. And again, the discrimination comes in and makes a separation, so we have to be kind to that so it doesn't disturb the unity of living beings and Buddhas. Earlier you used the word training. Training. And we talked about, or I've heard you talk about training in a department. Yes. And I think about the Buddha who traveled and studied all these things and was training, maybe in mindfulness. And I wonder, Training sounds to me like discrimination, which has sort of positive meaning for just discernment to it. Seems like there would be, not necessarily trying to get it, but there's some place you're going and you're using the present moment in your training, which sounds like getting it.

[28:13]

Yeah. It felt like a direction. A direction? Yeah. How do you use training when not trying to get or...? Well, so I'm training, okay, I'm training. So like I'm training, like, we have walking meditation in the Zendo, so we take a step, you know, and we try to practice mindfulness of our step, and we train at taking a step without trying to get anywhere. without trying to get down further in the zendo. We're not trying to get down there. We're just taking a step, and we're doing it mindfully, but we're not being mindful to try to get something. And we're training and seeing if we can... Like just now, here it goes, here we go. Take a step. There, okay. And that's on training and being able to take a step, which did just happen.

[29:14]

And, you know, I didn't get much out of that. Did you? We're training at not giving anything? We're training at not trying to get anything. Every moment we get our life is given to us. But not because we went and got it. It was given to us by the universe. And you could also say every moment we receive our life And if we think we have to go someplace to get it, we distract ourselves from the gift, which is this. And we train at being mindful of the gifts. Mindful of the gift. Mindful of the gift, and then also mindful of, am I trying to get anything in this process of mindfulness? And if so, then we practice mindfulness towards that, trying to get something. Am I discriminating between this foot being in the back and this foot being in the front?

[30:20]

Yeah? Yeah, this foot's back. But am I trying to get something out of this position? And if I now move the foot, am I trying to get something? Do I realize that this is where Buddha activity is? And now I'm in the Zen room. I'm not supposed to stand there for very long. People are behind me. It seems like the universe wants me to take a step, and if I'm not sure, then the universe might come up and say, would you please take a step? I was afraid I might be trying to get something by that step, but with your assistance, you're coming to the foot. And I'm mindful of it, and it's like... Yeah, that was like, it seemed like nobody was trying to get anything out of that. And even the person who told me to take a step, it seemed like they weren't trying to get anything either. Thank you for saying it that way, whoever you are. So we're training at that because without training we do sometimes think, you know, during this walking meditation I'm going to get a long ways.

[31:28]

I'm going to get a lot out of this one. Have any of you thought that? This period of walking meditation is going to be a major breakthrough. Here we go. Or, this period of meditation, somebody's going to get a lot of good stuff out of this one. Now, most people after a few periods don't do that anymore, but some people do. They still try to, I don't know what, try to get some meditation state. And we're not saying, do not think that way. We're saying, hey, I respect you when you're trying to get something out of walking meditation. We also have, we also watch dishes here, as you may have noticed. So it is possible to aspire to do your civic duty and wash dishes.

[32:33]

And then also, while you're washing dishes, check out to see if you're trying to get it. Like you're trying to get the dishes done, or you're just washing dishes in a never-ending process. There will never be an end to washing dishes. And then, okay. But some people, without training, are actually trying to get something out of dishwashing and out of meditation and zendos and doing meditation intensives and also being kind to people. Being kind to people is, of course, wonderful, but to do it to try to get something, it's just kind of like, it doesn't completely, but it kind of stinks it up. But we naturally, by our path, we try to be kind to people.

[33:35]

And then this other thing comes in the mirror. Will anybody notice? Am I going to get famous? The training is applied to other stuff. I'm sitting here. Am I the best sitter? Am I below average sitter? Are those people sitting as well as me? Rather than just sitting. And if you do think, I think I may be the best sitter in this world here. If you do think that, then be respectful of that. And if you're respectful of that, even thinking the thought, I'm the best meditator in this world, will drop off. So I'm being a compliment, which I often retain. This is a good time to repeat it.

[34:39]

The person said, you're always like this, and you're always ready to go like this. So here's your discrimination. Here's your discrimination. And if you're kind to your discrimination, your discrimination will be like this. It'll just be that discrimination. Or this one. But anyway, just be upright with your discriminations, and you'll be ready for your discriminations to go. And then if you're okay with that, they pop back up. So, yes? You can use the language of your life's goal to describe your life goal. My question is, how did you find that, and how did faith in it develop? So the answer to that question is, people who know me well, what's the answer?

[35:43]

Nobody knows me. The answer is, I don't know. However, I could tell you quite a few stories which I know how it happened. but reducing it to a cute little story. Like, for example, I saw a picture of a monk. He wasn't even a monk. He was a non-monk. He was a layperson. He was a Zen scholar. And he was sitting on the Tommy mat. And he looked really beautiful. And he didn't look like he was going anywhere. And nobody around was warning him, you know, about movies or anything. He was just like sitting there. And he was just so beautiful. Underneath the picture it said, in deepest thought. Deepest thought is like when you're not going to get anywhere. You can have sort of deep thoughts until you try to get somewhere, but when you're really where you are, and you're trying to get anywhere, you are very deep.

[36:49]

Maybe my question is not how did it happen, but why did you trust her, how did you trust her, or how did you know that that was it, that feeling or that impulse? I actually don't know. But every day, my faith gets deeper. And my faith is, this is what is important to me. Every day it gets clearer and clearer and clearer. And it got me so clear that I'm pretty much almost over knowing that that's what I want. I just think that. I just aspire to it. And every time I act in accord with it, it seems like, yeah, that's it. So it's actually to free us from knowing and not knowing. and to deal with the doubts about it, over and over with compassion. So anybody who has any doubts about the prophets, would practice compassion with the doubt, not getting rid of it, and practicing compassion with the doubt, the faith grows.

[38:02]

Plus two stories, you know, plus two stories. They're fine. But if you ask me how I know, I do not. However, although I don't know, and although you don't know, this conversation you're having is known. This conversation is the knowing of it. The practice is the knowing of it. The sitting in the Zen room is the knowing of it. Like some people. Some people, they know, but they don't practice. They're clinging to the discrimination that they know. So some people think they don't know, and they're clinging to that, and they don't practice either. The practice is the proof of putting. And what's the practice? The practice is being where you are, just as you are, and free of trying to get something out of it.

[39:06]

But also, there's another story I tell over and over. Can I tell it before I call on you? There's a story about one of the great disciples of one of the great teachers in Tibet. The great teacher in Tibet is called Tsongkhapa. And he had one of his main disciples who was called Vishwadranakam. And John was in a monastery. And in the monastery there was one of the teachers in the monastery doing lots of good stuff. And John said to him, you know, it's so lovely to see you having monks doing good things. You know, if you do something spiritual someday. And then over and over you'd see him doing really good stuff. performing service ceremonies very beautifully, giving teachings very kindly, and supporting the monks very kindly, doing good things. And he kept saying, it would be nice if you did something spiritual.

[40:11]

And I said, what do you mean? He said, about trying to get something out of it. So again, you're trying to help people, you're being kind, and it really is great that you're doing it. It would be nice if you didn't defile it by trying to get something out of it. Life is not something to get out of. It's not something to get out of, or get into, or get out of something. It's to live fully and realize that what you want is not other than what you have. It seems to me that trying to do something disguises itself too well. It's not just this verbal thing. So I'm wondering if there's an energetic way of spotting that. Yeah, there is. Conversation. You're walking along, maybe singing a song. Hey, no getting idea here. And somebody comes up to you and says, I want to talk to you.

[41:12]

And you say, no. No, thank you. And you feel kind of hot. And then you say, what's the matter? You say, you helped me find that I actually, I thought I was physically, and you helped me see that I'm not. Or, you know, the famous one is also, you know, you give somebody a gift, and they all say thanks. And you go... So, yeah, conversation showed it to me. Now, I can think, I can be walked around, oh, I'm definitely trying to get something. You know what I mean? Unless you're also trying to get that I know that I'm trying to get something. And then you can come up and talk to me, and my world starts to, you know, move, move, like a ship. Now, that's when the practice of imperative. Right here, you questioning me about whether I'm reading it right here, or whether I'm a little bit back there, up ahead. And that's not the end of the story, that's just for the moment, that somehow I was open to being questioned, and somebody can't even help me by questioning.

[42:20]

And then I maybe can say, can I ask you a question now? And you say, yeah. And we go on like this with no end. No end to this process of being right where we are without trying to get it. discovering the people's help that we... I'll get away from that. And again, I can notice it in myself. That's a simple story. I also... I know I'm saying foolish, but I don't want other people to notice it. Did you hear that? When I put the hearing aids on, I started whispering a few times. No, no, no. I think that's enough. What do you think? I mean, you guys, you got it. You know, as we say, now you have it. You know, there's training to take over. And it's pretty easy to notice and try and get something.

[43:23]

You don't have to be the least bit different from the way you are. Just check up to see if you're trying to get something other than where you are. And you'll probably find something. And then practice compassion with that. That's about it. And we need each other's help. And that's what we're here for, is to help and be helped in practicing just where we are, which is where we want to be. Where we want to be is already here. It's already here. But we have a mind that can think, or no way, whatever, a little bit different, we train with that and it'll drop away. And it wants to drop away so that we can realize the way. Thank you very much.

[44:24]

Thank you.

[44:39]

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